Associated Press photoLibyan men protest against Ansar al-Shariah Brigades and other Islamic militias in front Tebesty Hotel, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 21. The attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has sparked a backlash among frustrated Libyans against the heavily armed gunmen, including Islamic extremists, who run rampant in their cities.

To the Editor:

There were 4,477 soldiers killed, and another 31,985 wounded in the Iraq war. What does Roy Lehman’s Oct. 7 letter make of all that sacrifice? He called the war a “debacle,” which pastes that label on their honored souls, and does so unflinchingly.

I would tell Lehman to “tell it to the Marines,” but better he should tell that to those grieving families of America’s finest volunteer warriors.

He wouldn’t dare, would he?

Lehman’s letter informs us that Mitt Romney is not a “successful businessman, merely a man bent on profiting from some form of detestable activity in America’s marketplace. The writer should tell that to the tens of thousands of people whose jobs were saved through the efforts of Romney and his partners, but he wouldn’t dare do that either, would he?

Not content to stop there, Lehman makes a ludicrous comparison between President George W. Bush standing on the debris pile at “Ground Zero” in New York City, and a vision of President Barack Obama standing atop a similar debris pile at the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Really? That would be the height of hubris, although not beyond the reach of Obama. The Benghazi debris pile is, in reality, the sickening result of an administration’s failure to heed the pleas and the warnings of the ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. Stevens died, and the administration lies to this day.

This cover-up attempt, like the Fast and Furious weapons scandal, will eventually be seen for what it is — an administration’s inability to focus clearly and develop a foreign policy strategy in the best interests of the United States.

Let Lehman explain this to the newest of grieving American families, families not in the forefront of Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s minds.